With the possible exception of the drinks industry, I suppose I will be one of the few people to be deeply cheered by yesterday's figures showing that drinking among older people is rising steeply. And I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that this is revealed by NHS accident statistics. These are claimed to show alcohol-related hospital admissions up by two thirds over the last four years to 320,000 last year, according to the Lib Dem figures.

I say "claimed" advisedly. Parliament, having merrily voted in 24-hour drinking, is going through a characteristically hypocritical phase of alcohol-related Puritanism. The media has caught the mood and I don't trust their statistics. Hardly a day goes by without vicious denunciations of binge drinking (Britain's only real hobby, for God's sake). The middle-aged, middle-class are repeatedly pilloried for selfishly ruining their health by pickling themselves in wine. Reports suggest that our brave boys in blue are regularly faced by drunken, rioting mobs of teens wading knee deep their own urine and vomit, and that the off-licences and parks are full of four-year-olds loading up on strong cider between spliffs. Drinking would be a less lonely and more amusing business if this were all true – and why the hell should older people be left out?

I suspect that equally vapid exaggeration underlies the claimed accident statistics, though I don't deny older people are drinking. I sign off the accident reports for the more than 50 residential homes for older people I manage in my current job and about 5% of the incidents reported are alcohol related – people getting pissed and falling over, if you want a nice concise definition. But very few people go to hospital – most get up, dust themselves off and have a lie down or a cup of tea.

I genuinely wouldn't want to minimise the dangers that this involves, of course. I am all for educating older people about the dangers inherent to drinking, its likely impact on livers, brain cell count and bones less resistant to falls than they once were, and the ease with which bored, lonely or bereaved older people can be tempted.

But that's precisely the point. The reason why older people are tempted is because they have more troubles and fewer pleasures than they used to. Few older people are so wealthy that they can float themselves on seas of champagne but most have enough money to have a few drinks and forget about their troubles once in a while. Good for them, I say, and if they happen to fall, may they bounce right back and have another drink for luck.

• Christopher Manthorp is a director of older people's services for a registered provider. He is writing in a personal capacity.